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Addressing Food Insecurity: AHN Healthy Food Centers Video

  • By:  Catherine Clements and David Flora
  • Posted:  January 19, 2023
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The Allegheny Health Network Healthy Food Center program has a proven approach to address food insecurity in the western Pennsylvania region. Through this “food pharmacy” program, patients who lack access to food receive a referral for free nutritious food items, education on disease-specific diets and additional resources for other social challenges they may face.

Watch AHN clinicians and a Healthy Food Center patient share how this program is making nutritious meals and proactively managing health a reality for more families.

Four Key Takeaways

As part of the AHN Center for Inclusion Health, the Healthy Food Centers are embedded directly within the hospital. Across five locations, Allegheny General Hospital, Forbes Hospital, Jefferson Hospital, West Penn Hospital and St. Vincent, this program:

  1. Uses food as medicine to treat the whole person
  2. Increases access to healthy food options
  3. Provides education on nutritious food sources
  4. Helps patients better manage health conditions

Addressing Social Determinants of Health at AHN

AHN is committed to and investing in the health and wellbeing of its communities. Through innovative social determinants of health programs and partnerships, it is addressing root causes — clinical, behavioral and social — that drive health outcomes. This includes:

  • AHN's Community Support platform, powered by online social care network Aunt Bertha, connects users to resources to address a wide range of needs. This free tool helps patients and community members find specific geographic information on social service and community benefits organizations.
  • Ongoing partnership with Thrive18, a community-based outreach organization that is working towards improving health and wellbeing of Pittsburgh's Northside residents by connecting at-risk households to available resources.
  • AHN's Center for Inclusion Health serves vulnerable and disadvantaged populations through resources such as the Healthy Food Center, the 'Rethinking Incarceration and Empowering Recovery' (RIvER) Clinic, Immigrant Health program for immigrant and refugee women, Center for Recovery Medicine, the Positive Health Clinic, and more.

Read more articles about social determinants of health efforts across the enterprise on Highmark Health’s Digital Magazine.

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Highmark Health and its subsidiaries and affiliates comprise a national blended health organization that employs more than 42,000 people and serves millions of Americans across the country.

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